Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I think we are all delighted he has been appointed. It is slightly ironic that his first appearance is in the Seanad, but he is very welcome and we are delighted to have him. It is a huge personal honour for him and I hope he will be a Minister of State to the full in the Department because the OPW plays a serious and important role for the entire country. I visited Oldbridge House with which I am sure the Minister of State will become familiar. The staff there were very interested in who would be appointed as Minister of State this week. The Minister of State's name did not come up in the conversation I had with them at the weekend, but I am sure they will be delighted and will certainly look forward to him visiting them. The same applies to the offices in Trim, County Meath.

The Seanad should possibly have given the Minister of State the courtesy of allowing him a few days to get up to speed in the Department. It was a bit much to ask him to come here tonight to put this legislation through, but he has risen to the challenge, which we welcome. He will be happy to note that we will be supporting the legislation. I understand everybody will be supporting it. I am sure we will all have our own reservations and amendments that we will bring forward on Committee Stage, but we support the passage of the Bill. However, it is overdue, although not as a result of any delay caused by the Minister for State. The Government should have looked at this legislation much sooner. It seems that many things are being done with an eye to the general election when perhaps they might have been done some time ago.

It has been mentioned that services such as broadband, water and energy will be supported by the SIF. They are vworthy, but I do not think social housing is mentioned in the legislation. It is something that should possibly be looked at because it is said to be a priority in the latest version of the programme for Government that we received last week. It specifically relates to the private sector and working towards the provision of 25,000 houses per year; therefore, I would like to see something being done on that side. All of us in the greater Dublin area are coming across frightening cases. Only today I heard about the particularly frightening case of homelessness, an issue I would like to see prioritised as, I am sure, would other Members of the House.

It is important to note the role of the NTMA. Overall, it has done a very good job in managing the State's money outside the Civil Service. It is a model that worked very well for a time - certainly when the economy and stock market were rising. It obviously has had difficulties since and owing to the economic crisis, a lot of the money has been used for purposes other than those intended. The Bill looks to rationalise and simplify the Government's instructions to the NTMA to establish a more integrated approach to the performance of its functions which have expanded significantly since it was established in 1990 by Mr. Albert Reynolds. There will be a chairperson and other members with overarching responsibility for the agency's existing debt management and State Claims Agency functions and functions relating to infrastructural projects carried out by the NDFA, the ISIF and NewERA. There will be no change to the proposals relating to NAMA.

The legal costs unit will be established to deal with third party costs arising from tribunals of inquiry, which is welcome. It is amazing because the last report was released over two years ago and those inquiries were still being legislated for. It just proves the point that they were totally unsuitable and not fit for purpose in doing something speedily and at low cost. We are two years on from the Mahon tribunal and over three years on from the Moriarty tribunal and these issues are still arising.

Three years ago we suggested leveraging private pension funds in the NPRF as a means of supporting infrastructural investment. Yes, the Government is doing this now, but it is belated. Given the failure to deliver on existing promises, there must be considerable doubt about whether this will produce benefits. We can only hope that it will, but there is doubt based on the track record of the Government. I am not including the Minister of State in this because he has only joined the Government today.

We will support the Bill. We will have amendments on Committee Stage which will probably be taken some time this week because there is a rush to get legislation through. I think the Seanad generally agrees that rushing legislation through at the last minute is unfortunate; there is a huge number of Bills going through the Seanad today and every day this week, yet we had days in the past few weeks on which there really was nothing to do. That is not a very good way to carry out the people's business and to bring forward very important legislation such as this which we want to support, work and hope will bring tangible improvements to the economy.